Final Thoughts

I had such high hopes for Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 and felt nothing but disappointed in the end. We were teased of this earlier in the year and the Note 10.1 went through some considerable changes before hitting the shelves of retailers, and the hands of consumers.

The Note 10.1 feels rushed and subpar for the maker of such hits like the Galaxy S II and S III. There are some great parts of the Note 10.1, such as the S-Pen, speakers and its various utilities and applications. The size of the screen is great at 10.1 inches, but is let down by its lackluster 1280x800 resolution.

I think there are too many negatives with the Note 10.1, which has really put a sour taste in my mouth for Samsung-made tablets now. After coming down from the massive high that the Nexus 7 took me to, to the mediocrity of the iPhone 5 - this is actually a low point for me.

The Note 10.1 could be oh-so-much better with its insane spec list, but is let down severely in build quality, screen resolution and baked-in TouchWix UX. TouchWiz really slows down the out of the box experience, and proves why iOS wins against Android to most consumers.

An iOS device doesn't have bloat, it doesn't have floating apps, it doesn't have crap that completely slows down the entire $500-plus product to the point of wondering "is there something wrong with my sample?" Then I started digging into the Note 10.1, removing the bloat and discovering that it sped up considerably.

I presumed with its quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM that I wouldn't need to remove the widgets, but the performance improvement is well worth it. I shouldn't have to do that; I shouldn't have to do anything. As a consumer who would buy this, they'd most likely leave the widgets on the screen (at least in the first few days or weeks of use). This would give a hugely negative reaction and opinion on a device that should, by all means, be much, much faster.

The front-facing speakers are great, the rear-facing camera isn't too bad, and the screen size is perfect for portrait viewing. That's all I really liked with the Note 10.1, unfortunately. The price isn't too bad, but the Nexus 7 is cheaper and a far superior product worthy of your money.

There are just too many negatives with the Note 10.1, and I can't find anything on it worth highly recommending to you. Samsung, I'm disappointed, and I really hope you learn from this and step up your game, significantly, with the next tablet release.

Drop TouchWiz and offer a stock Android ROM and you'll have millions more customers on that fact alone. Even if you can't do this, put a note on the device stating that you can offer this to your consumers if they would like to flash the ROM with a stock Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean ROM.

I personally would much rather a stock Google experience than a Google plus TouchWiz experience, especially with how slow the Note 10.1 feels with TouchWiz painted on top.

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